The city breathed.
Not like lungs. Like a wound exhaling plague.
Stone-ribs cracked and moaned, flesh-streets quivering as black blood flowed faster, thicker, suffocating alleys in its viscous tide. The air was no longer air. It was marrow, heavy and sticky, searing every lung it touched.
Kael stood at the epicenter, root-tendrils thrumming in rhythm with the city's pulse. Every heartbeat sent waves of black fire through the streets, igniting husks in a silent frenzy.
Kane danced among them, spine-blade singing in arcs of marrow-light. Each strike birthed screams, each scream carved a memory from existence.
He turned, eyes glinting with the thrill of sin.
"Brother," he said, voice dripping with reverence and madness, "do you feel it? The Bloom… it's hungry."
Kael didn't answer. His roots surged, splitting the ground beneath him. Veins of flesh-rock burst upward, wrapping buildings like serpents. They swallowed stone, timber, metal—anything in their path—and fed the Black Bloom that had become him.
Above, the Dark Tome flared. Pages ripped themselves into ribbons, writhing, inscribing new scripts into the air. The words burned cold and hot simultaneously.
"Consume. Expand. Become."
Thirn's paper-dress shredded entirely. Her body, now bare and marked with ink, glowed faintly as the prayers left her skin, floating into the veins of the city. She raised her arms, eyes black as the roots, voice shaking yet unwavering.
"The God hungers. And through us… it will rise."
Kane's grin widened. "Then let it rise."
He plunged his blade into the closest tower, and the spire shattered like brittle bone. From the splintered tower crawled a mass of twisting flesh, hundreds of arms, countless faces, all reaching upward, screaming in a choir of terror and devotion. Kane laughed, louder than the screams, sharper than the splintering buildings.
Kael's roots tangled with the monstrosities, binding them, reshaping them. Black fire licked the veins of Spinedral. The city no longer resisted. It was alive, conscious, a hive of pain and obedience.
The god above stirred, no longer silent. Its shadow poured over the city like a river of ink, thick and suffocating. Yet Kael did not falter. His black eyes glimmered with something older than sin.
"Rise higher," he commanded.
The ground split again, deeper, wider, vomiting flesh-beasts that clawed skyward, mouths wide, dripping ichor. They obeyed without thought, without hesitation. They knew.
Kane joined them, spine-blade a conductor, carving arcs that seared reality itself. Every strike was a note, and the city sang in response—a song of blood, bone, and fire.
Kael reached within himself, summoning the root that had first torn through his chest. It responded, thickening, growing, spreading like ink in water. Every tendril wrapped around streets, towers, husks, and even the fleeing shadow of the god.
A single pulse of the Bloom radiated outward. Windows shattered, streets convulsed, and the corpses grew taller, stronger, sharper. Black flames erupted from their bones, licking the sky, reflecting in the god's endless shadow.
And then… silence.
Not peace. Not calm. Silence heavy as a tomb. The city paused, every living and unliving thing waiting.
Kael lifted his hand, trembling slightly, though his eyes burned eternal black.
"Feed," he whispered.
The shadows obeyed. The Bloom obeyed. The city obeyed.
Kane's laughter broke the pause, wild and unrestrained. "And I? I cut!"
He swung again, carving through a bridge of bone and flesh. The city trembled under the dual force of creation and destruction. Above, the god's shadow writhed, aware now that it was not the master.
Kael's roots pulsed, a heartbeat louder than the world's. "We bloom," he said, voice a growl carried on the marrow-wind. "And soon… the world will kneel."
The streets opened further. Not like roads. Not like wounds. Like the mouth of a god, ready to swallow everything.
And Spinedral… waited, hungry.